Ways to find members for your forum

Robby

Well-known member
Hi,

We all know forumbuilding is not easy. I was wondering wich techniques you use to populate your forum. Beside posting on other forums, do you market your forum or do you just wait till its gonna happen?
 
I go a couple different routes..

Make sure there is good (and current!) content on your forum.. whether its actual users, you posting as a few different people or something like postloop (paid forum posting). Make sure you're posting about what you think people may be searching for.. make lots of various topics w/ good info in them and hopefully get good search engine positions for them..

Find out your market - if its motocross, go to local motocross events handing out stickers, sponsor riders, etc.. interview some of the top riders.. (translate this into your niche)...

Facebook, twitter, etc.. put out awesome information about your topic.. hope people share it..

There are lots of ways. Depending on your niche, find the best way for you..
 
I haven't been using forums for very long but I am finding linking from my blog is helping to get my main forum started. Blogs are easier to look at IMO for the average net surfer so I like to use an interesting image with an informative article/post on my blog then link it to the forum to a ready made thread on the same subject. This draws the reader in through the blog and then directs them straight to the forum where those who aren't to savvy with forum software can land right on what they are interested in and then hopefully become engaged in the conversation and sign up. My analytical data shows this is working.

I've also started using a portal (Extra Portal) as a home page to help draw people into the discussion areas - no hard evidence this works but it can't hurt.

As stated above, Twitter seems to bring in short bursts of good activity for me sometimes same for fb.

I've ran two competitions so far using Competitions by Chris Deeming to help generate some interest and that's been OK ( I wish I could set some more parameters though to encourage/force more activity before comp entry).

Asking questions on your own forum has generated the odd sign up for me as people do like to help so they come across an unanswered question and sign up to reply if they can answer it.

Paid advertising to promote my own forum is not something I'm a fan of and I'd rather put money into improving the forum, writing content myself (like a review on a new product I purchased), or a prize for a member contributing.

At the beginning, I asked friends and family (and wife) to sign up and get involved and this gave me some instant activity which did taper off rather quickly but it did take my forum from a blank canvass and me talking to myself to looking a little busier :)
 
I haven't been using forums for very long but I am finding linking from my blog is helping to get my main forum started. Blogs are easier to look at IMO for the average net surfer so I like to use an interesting image with an informative article/post on my blog then link it to the forum to a ready made thread on the same subject. This draws the reader in through the blog and then directs them straight to the forum where those who aren't to savvy with forum software can land right on what they are interested in and then hopefully become engaged in the conversation and sign up. My analytical data shows this is working.

I've also started using a portal (Extra Portal) as a home page to help draw people into the discussion areas - no hard evidence this works but it can't hurt.

As stated above, Twitter seems to bring in short bursts of good activity for me sometimes same for fb.

I've ran two competitions so far using Competitions by Chris Deeming to help generate some interest and that's been OK ( I wish I could set some more parameters though to encourage/force more activity before comp entry).

Asking questions on your own forum has generated the odd sign up for me as people do like to help so they come across an unanswered question and sign up to reply if they can answer it.

Paid advertising to promote my own forum is not something I'm a fan of and I'd rather put money into improving the forum, writing content myself (like a review on a new product I purchased), or a prize for a member contributing.

At the beginning, I asked friends and family (and wife) to sign up and get involved and this gave me some instant activity which did taper off rather quickly but it did take my forum from a blank canvass and me talking to myself to looking a little busier :)
Hello,

How did you instaal the sidebar on your site for extra portal?
Through widget framework?
If yes, witch frase should i use forum_home?
 
Hello,

How did you instaal the sidebar on your site for extra portal?
Through widget framework?
If yes, witch frase should i use forum_home?
Hi Robby,

yes mate I use Widget Framework and "simpleportal_index" for the phrase.

My home page is the portal but I've left my index page to forums/ (so my landing page is still my forums)

Cheers, Mark
 
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